Bill Gates’ keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show
2008 revealed a rather startling statistic with regards to the
sales and acceptance performance of Windows Vista.

Gates told the audience that Windows Vista has sold more
than 100 million copies since the operating system’s launch in January
2007. When comparing pure numbers against Windows XP, which sold only 89 million
copies in its first year, Windows Vista appears to be a hit – but looking at
the big picture sheds a different sort of light on the matter.

With the PC market at nearly twice the size today as it was
in 2001, InformationWeek
surmises that Windows Vista captured around 39 percent of the new PC market in
its first year, while Windows XP managed to grab 67 percent of the new PC
market during its initial period.

The rather lukewarm response to Windows Vista must be
troubling for Microsoft. In response to customers with cold feet on the new OS,
Dell in April 2007 brought back the option
for its customers to choose Windows XP. Microsoft then took things another
step further by allowing
OEMs to downgrade Windows Vista Business and Ultimate installations to
Windows XP.